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Africans Dance in Time: Kinaesthetic Praxis and the Constructing of a Community Karel Arnaut Cultural Dynamics 1988; 1; 252 DOI: 10.1177/092137408800100302 The online version of this article can be found at: http://cdy.sagepub.com
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME* Kinaesthetic Praxis and the
Constructing of a Community
KAREL ARNAUT
Rijksuniversiteit
Gent
"I wanna know if you’re blind Joanna, If you wanna hear the sound of drum, Can’t you see that the tide is turning, don’t let me wait until the mourning comes." Eddy Grant, 1988
Introduction
After nearly one decennium of intensive research, Alan Lomax ended his Choreometrix project on the relation between everyday movements and dance movements. One of the central laws Lomax detected on the African continent was the two-fold body attitude where upper and lower limbs danced or responded to a different rhythmic pattern. The reason for the existence of this kind of movement style, which results in &dquo;orgiastic excitement&dquo;, was formulated as follows: &dquo;More work gets done, a high birthrate is maintained in polygamous families, and the electric current of sexuality touches everyone.&dquo; (Lomax, 1986, 239, 25658) Should Lomax’s claim be true that Africans perform sexual dances, we are permitted to ask, Why don’t they make love instead of wasting time and energy enacting coitus? A similar kind of problem arises regarding the dances of the Hopi Indians of North America. Looking for an explanation of their dances, both Parsons (1939, 817) and Whorf (1964, 149) take an unanimous stand: Dancing-as a very intense and sustained muscular activityincreases the tempo of the development of events and thus hastens the ripening of the fruits and crops. Again: If this is the case, Why don’t the Hopi Indians simply perform rain- vr fertility rituals or any other kind of ’intensive and sustained muscular activity’ like sports and games? Why the need to dance the rituals? In this article, I want to pursue these questions in order to formulate them better. In so doing I will be providing an outline of what, at this stage, begins to look like a long-term research project.
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
The Structure
253
of the Article
The article in its entirety attempts to fulfill two interrelated aims. Firstly it seeks to uncover some of the reasons for what, after more than thirty years of ethnochoreology, begins to look like the fallacy of an entire discipline; and, secondly, to make ’the African experience’ intelligible to the West by applying a more intuitive method. Even though the article and the issues behind them stem from a deep discontentment with the way ethno-choreologists approach their subject of research, I shall not discuss either the weaknesses or mistakes in the way several anthropological schools have dealt with African dance or music. Instead, I shall identify the three basic assumptions that are widely held with respect to dance or music as aesthetic phenomena. These, I will claim in the first section, have prevented us from understanding kinaesthetic praxis. This term of the art refers to a cluster of activities traditionally labeled dance, music, song and poetry. These activities are both rhythmically structured and posses aesthetic qualities. The explication of these terms, however, is done in the fifth section. In the second and the third section, I look at two of these assumptions, viz., that dance and music are movements in space and time and that they are meaningful, more closely. There I shall argue that both these conceptions are founded in the typically atlantic concept of science and, by extension, in a western religious world view. In the next section, I take up the problem of comparison: What does it mean to compare the African kinaesthetic domain with our ’aesthetic domain’? To raise this question properly, we need a slightly ’technical’ outline of the structure and morphology of African music and a deep description of African dance. That is what I shall do in the fourth section. In the fifth section, I elaborate on the problem by exploring the notion of kinaesthetic knowledge. There, I shall argue the need for conceiving a specific type of learning process that generates this knowledge: What kind of a learning process is it? How could it be conceived intelligibly? What is its scope? These are questions tackled in that section. In the sixth and last section, I shall reflect upon the problems that such an exercise as this raises. The rather somber conclusion of the article is that (a) comparative musicology or ethno-choreology cannot exist unless it rethinks its subject of research and accepts the consequences even if they entail the giving up of an entire discipline; and that (b) African kinaesthetic praxis cannot be treated on the same level as dance or music in the West.
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254
AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
1. Western
or
Ethno-choreographers
and Their
Assumptions
Despite the undeniable diversity, the various students of African dance music share a series of assumptions both with respect to what dance
and music are and what their ’survival value’ is. Let me look at three of the more basic ideas. The first and the most commonly held assumption is that dance is a movement in space and time. Apart from being empty, the problem with this definition, as we will see later, is that in African kinaesthetic praxis space is ’temporalized’ so to speak, and, seen as measurable distances, is irrelevant to grasping the dimensionality of that experience. To analyze the meaningful space in which dancers move, and to try to make sense of the individual or collective figures traced by the dancers is an unnecessary
choreographic, and, thus, an unproductive choreologic undertaking. Another aspect of spatiality that is often taken to be important for the study of African dance is the physical context and the (symbolic) organization of the ’ritual field’ of the performance. Neither the description of the movement of the participants nor the symbolic construction of a ritual space is important or relevant to the African dancers themselves. If anything, what counts to a dancing African is simply the body that is dancing and, in this sense, we could say that dancing is essentially anthropocentric. How this must be understood will become clear in the fourth section of this article. The second assumption that we’d like to criticize claims that dance or music is meaningful. In addition to being a craftily designed argument at assessing the inefficiency of these two media, it draws upon other unacceptable ideas, namely, that rhythmic movements and rhythmic sounds refer to words, ideas or propositions depending upon how one wants to formulate it. By extension, it is assumed that all media comply with this rule. So, ’working with’ (relating to) words, ideas or propositions is not only a dominant way of thinking, but is also assumed to be the only way to high-level, say, theoretical knowledge. This means that there is only one supreme kind of knowledge associated with one superior kind of transmission, that is, the written text. In this way all other media (a) are ’cognitive’ to the extent they draw on the capacities of theoretical thinking, and (b) are arranged in a hierarchy in order of their effectiveness in clearly expressing words, ideas or propositions. The assumption that there is but one superior knowledge and one highly efficient medium on this planet seems quite implausible to us (see also Pinxten et al., 1988, 1-28). The concept of ’medium’ of expression will be criticized in what
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255
follows not only on theoretical grounds but also by pointing to a totally different sort of meaningless, rhythm based praxis which most certainly produces a distinct kind of knowledge. The third assumption is about the universal function of music and dance: both arts or artistic collective activities enhance the integration/cohesion of a group. Indeed this statement is frequently validated by anthropological observation and even by informants’ comments. The problem with this assumption is its emptiness. Such a functionalist approach to dance is simply a reproduction of similar themes we encounter elsewhere: Religion, Ritual, Myth etc... survive in societies because they enhance the cohesion of a group. This could be true, but it does not help us understand why Africans dance instead of telling stories or performing rituals. Besides, there is a deeper problem involved: What do Africans mean by a ’unifying’ dance session? Let me begin with the last notion: in what sense could we say that African dance enhances the cohesion of the community of dancers? What is involved in such a claim? To understand this assertion properly, we need to get clearer about such ideas as ’unity’, ’community’ etc. It is to this task that I now turn. 2.
Rhythms of Unity :
The
Definition of a
Problem
In this section, I shall take up the problem of integration and meaning in African dance. As I see it, both these conceptions are founded in a typically Atlantic concept of science and, by extension, in a westernreligious worldview.
2.1.
Unity:
A
Misunderstanding
As a starting point, I would like to mention a puzzling fact about a book edited by Kariamu W. Asante and Molefi K. Asante (1985).1 This book brings several reflections about the unity of African Culture together and is titled: African Culture. After Senghor’s ’negritude’ and Cheik Anta Diop’s ’afrocentrism’, we are confronted with a new attempt to explore the content of a contemporary ’africanity’, an African way of going about the world, solving problems, communicating, learning, etc.There is but one article in the collection on the nature of rhythms in Africa, whereas the rest of are concerned with the elusive problem of African unity. Nevertheless, the book is subtitled: The Rhythms of Unity. Thus the puzzle: Why do the editors feel that the unity of African culture has to do with rhythms?
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256
AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
To
begin unpacking this puzzle,
we
need
to
look
at
the ways in which
conceive of an African culture: One could argue that the unity of African culture is defendable/unacceptable on the basis of the linguistic similarity/diversity and the historico-geographical interaction/isolation of a large number of one can a.
ethnic groups; b. One could acknowledge that African culture is a unit because a large number of cultural characteristics are shared by a majority of
autochtones; c.
say
Alternatively, so.
But,
to
one can
do this
one
speak of African culture because the Africans need
to
know what Africans
mean
when talk-
ing about unity and diversity. This would enable us to assess the (ir)relevancy of the academic debate about the unity/diversity of African culture, and the way evidence is provided. In what follows I shall argue for the third position. By doing so, I hope make clear that both the first and the second stances are defendable a certain extent. Because of the fact that they are partially tenable, their opposition turns into a kind of dichotomy which could only statistically be settled: finding more features of cultural expression shared by all Africans would confirm the second; finding more diversity would confirm the first. The third position intersects both these stances by taking into account the African concept of unity/diversity. In order to see how the third position accomplishes this, we need to appreciate why the first two are only partially tenable. to to
Is
Africa
a
linguistic-geographical unity ?
Let’s first observe how Westerners and Africans seem to contradict each other’s arguments when seeking to prove the unity of African culture. The western, rather traditional reflex, admits to the geographical existence of a continent inhabited by people who are black enough to be considered a cultural unit, and confined by enough salt water to be considered a historical unit. However, the powerful historico-cultural argument that appeals to the geographical delineation of cultures is vehemently contested by the most outstanding of the colloquium participants, Wole Soyinka. The Nobel prize winner reacts against what he calls the ’saline consciousness’, &dquo;which insists that Africa stops wherever salt licks its shores&dquo; (Soyinka, 1985,19). Apart from being an allusion to the Afro-American connection, this must be looked at as a strong protest
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257
outside as opposed to stressing one’s distinctive features from within. Let me put it even more strongly and, perhaps,
against definition from even more
clearly.
The most classical conception of ’ethnicity’ within the Western intellectual tradition has appealed to two criteria for delineating one ethnic group from another: sharing a common language and a common physical space. The linguistic and geographical boundaries mark-off one ethnic group from another. The ’basic’ unit of a ’nation’, as they have historically and intellectually developed in the West, is an ethnic group. To speak of an African culture, in this classical sense, is to speak of an African ethny sharing a language and physical space together. It appears to me that the way ethnies are constituted vary from culture to culture, and that our own ’traditional’ reflex stems from our way of being (un)able to constitute the African ethny.1 Soyinka’s point, in view of this, is the following: how Africans constitute/consider themselves as a cultural unit has to do neither with linguistic nor geographical boundaries. Should this claim be true, the challenge is shattering: what have we been studying when we have studied the Africans all these centuries? Be as it may, as Soyinka sees it, the ’reasons’ why non-Africans (especially Europeans and Americans) have ’denied’ unity to African culture are to be found in the history of the West and a Western contemporary attitude-fear of a collective African self- cognition? -and not in the overwhelming abundance of cultural material described or taken away from the black continent. More disturbing is the fact that Africans seem to agree with the position Soyinka is defending: Africans are diversity-oriented: differences must be made clear, confronted with each other and repeated. Nevertheless, this is only half the story. We have to pursue our questioning on how Africans handle differences. I suggest that they do it in a rhythmic way.
Rhythm:
a
shared feature of cultural expression?
I have already drawn attention to the puzzle about the fact that a book, which covers all fields of human action (politics, art production, intellectual tradition, etc.), is subtitled ’The Rhythms of Unity’: Why do the editors assume the unity of Africa in terms of Rhythms ? What are they trying to tell us? Let’s look at this matter in two different ways: Firstly, music, dance, song and poetry-common to each of which is rhythm-are activities in which all African cultures characterize themselves and can be so characterized. Secondly,
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
there is a necessary relation between rhythm and unity: according to the Africans unity has to be rhythmic in nature. While on one hand one can say that rhythmic performance unifies the African world (&dquo;common features of cultural expression&dquo;), on the other hand one also finds the idea that the African notion of unity deals with rhythm as its most important feature. There can be no unity without rhythm. If one accepts the existence of an African rhythm which characterizes all sorts of kinaesthetic praxis, and assumes that this way of handling rhythm is shared by most Africans, one could suggest the following: &dquo;The existence of one African culture can be proved by some rules of rhythm-making shared by a large number of Africans. These rules are applied in all kinaesthetic and phonaesthetic media. Of course, there is the empirical fact that a considerable number of performances show deviations from these rules, but this is due to the micro-culture, contextor function-specific realization of these rules. A number of rules of rhythm-making and an overview of exceptions can be formulated in ’sometimes’... and ’some other times’ sentences&dquo;. This, however will not do, and that for two reasons. Firstly, by arguing in this fashion, we shall be repeating exactly the same kind of mistakes that the earlier generations of anthropologists committed: they listened to an autochtone statement, translated and made sense of it by using their common sense semantic grid. Secondly, even if we could specify the technical features of something like African rhythm, it does not say much because we do not know what rhythm-making is. Not only that. Suppose we say that African rhythm-making follows established patterns or applies inculcated rules. Would this work? It would not, not only because the proposition &dquo;Applying rules of rhythm-making&dquo; is a contradictio in terminis but also because we are confronted with two fundamentally different conceptions of music-making and dancing. From this it follows that while the Western researcher is looking for rules of praxis, the African, in the way he views rhythm, is expressing the irrelevancy of this exotic and occidental practice. Consequent upon this, our task is clear. We need to develop an African notion of ’rhythm’, whose implications I shall spell out later. For the moment, what we need to note is the kind of problem that we are being led towards.
2.2.
Africa
as a
Rhythmic Unity ?
Summarizing the previous observations we are led to a rather clear Assuming unity in terms of geographical boundaries and diversity
thesis:
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
259
in terms of cultural features is a Western concern. To analyze the reasons for this attitude goes beyond the scope of this article. The African attitude seems both to assent and to contradict the Western one: Africans are diversity-oriented but innocent of the occidental rule-reflex. Both these positions are to be understood within the African dominant knowledge
system. If we were to suggest that there is an African way of going about the world which is to be understood as essentially kinaesthetic, thus referring to the notion of a rhythm, it would appear to challenge both our and the Africans’ own argument. If what I have said so far is true, the subtitle (the Rhythms of Unity) demonstrates that the African editors were trapped by their own concepts. Suppose that the African concept of unity differs from that in the West. In that case, our question becomes How to conceptualize the unity-making or the integration of a group of people while assuming the absence of rules followed by the &dquo;moral majority&dquo;? For the time being, I shall only partially unlock this mystery of cultural comparison by pointing to a paradigmatic cultural practice where one learns how to handle diversity: a dance/music session. The most obvious aspect of a kinaesthetic session is that diversity is cultivated in such a way that all participants are encouraged to make a personal rhythmic contribution. Important to note is the fact that this it not seen as having a deep symbolic significance. Personalized differences do not represent differences in beliefs. The content of what is said is not to be examined for compatibility with the’worldview’. This is not seen as the summum of antistructure (anti-rule) or anarchist deconcertation. The moral test resides in the fact that someone wants to engage in a situation where differences get interrelated. Relationships are built out in dynamic interaction. At times a consensus is created about how to evolve collectively. That is, unity is not a matter of a preformed consensus about doing and thinking the right stuff, but of being constantly prepared to learn how to achieve a consensus which is neither absolute nor timeless. Every consensus is temporary and subject to a process of aging. What is exemplarily confirmed in every dance/music session is (i) dance movements or musical interventions are meaningless, (ii) therefore differences are not what they seem to be for a western researcher and (iii) the unity-making capacity of kinaesthetic praxis must be approached on another level: everyone is not expressing what everyone knows but everyone is learning how every-one’ can be ordered. In the next part we will formulate the first of these conclusions and spell out the implications of the occidental rule-reflex. According to this, a
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
the beginning and at the end (of the world). Constructing a consensus is collectively applying ’given’ rules; finding a consensus is refinding it. It seems to me that if we keep seeking for the ’one’ that integrates all, we are bound to neglect the many &dquo;one’s&dquo; who want to get integrated. consensus
3.
is assumed
Meaningful
to
exist
at
Dance and Music: Are
they Deficient
Media
of Expression?
in an article dating from 1967, writes: &dquo;... en Afrique...on considere la musique comme un mode d’expression... Elle ouvre egalement la voie a 1’expression de pensees et de sentiments personnels, aussi bien que des sentiments d’une communaute.&dquo; (Nketia, 1967a, 154).3 The question is: How is this possible? It appears to me that there are two mutually exclusive possibilities. a. The ideas and sentiments of the individuals are the same as the ideas and sentiments of the musical communities to which they belong. So, prior to every performance there exists a perfect concertation where every particular performance is an artistic reinforcement. This idea recurs in a considerable number of ethnographic studies of music, dance, ritual, myth etc. in non-western cultures. b. The ideas and sentiments of individuals and society are different. As a result, the musical expression of this diversity is a complete chaos. Consequently, music as the organization of sound and dance as the organization of movement are both impossible. Let us look at the issue more closely.
Nketia,
A Consensus: just
afraid of being alone point of view with respect
The traditional to this issue can be formulated as follows: Music and dance, like any other codified or formally structured system of communication, convey information. What is to be communicated resides in the heads of the performers who know the code to convert these ideas into the symbols/signs of the selected medium. So, there are two competences required: (a) knowing what to think and (b) knowing how to express one’s ideas. The ethno-scholars admit that there’s only one way to discern what the performers think, viz., by making speculative inferences from the meticulously registered actions. On the lookout for a foot to stand on, most of the researchers timorously assume the existence of a sort of consensus residing in the heads of their subjects. Therefore the matter is crudely psychologized on
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
261
the basis of an ’Angst-ridden’ ontology, which, according to me, requires still to be shown as holding for non-western cultures. This ontology says that in order to reduce the fear of the unknown, peoples all over the world develop a corpus of knowledge which lends predictability to the environment and increases the efficiency of intra-group cooperation. Contemporary scholars keep asking how such a consensus can be transmitted in the absence of a central, dogmatizing institution (Balagangadhara, 1988; Havelock, 1969). The presence of such an institution is a fact of western history, but is quite difficult to establish with respect to other e. g. African societies. While this ontology is used to ’explain’ the existence of a consensus, how does the traditional view account for its expression in dance and music making? It does so by suggesting that the units of analysis are the significant (or meaning carrying) products of the activities of music making and dance, viz., movements/figures for dance and sounds/chords or melodies for music. So, while looking at dance, music-making and the like, we observe a series of actions which, taken separately, communicate a message and, taken as a whole, tell us a story. To the question Why don’t they tell us the story instead of dancing it? it is pointed out that certain media are particularly well-equipped to convey certain kinds of stories. The story which the musical praxis expresses is constructed out of affective messages. This idea that dance is the most suitable form for communicating emotions taken together with the fact that dance (or music making) is one of the most characteristic features of the African culture provides us with the two most popular ideas current (both in the West and in Africa itself) about culture: (a) emotion is to Africa what reason is to the West (after all, did not President Senghor himself say so?); and (b) as emotion and sex are strongly intertwined, the orgasmic enjoyment of the Blacks seem to have a survival-value in the end: men get exited by the swinging hips of their partners, and children get born after nine months (Lomax, 1968, 256-58). It is thus that musical praxis results in the temporal creation of an affective bond, the basis of integration, the continuation of community and the consolidation of local knowledge. Dance
is just being happy together
If we accept the thesis that dance/music is the spectacular and artistic reinforcement of a consensus, it gives birth to at least two problems: (a) How is this consensus pre-established in the absence of an authoritative
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
’unit’? and (b) What is dance/music all about? The answer the second question would be that it is anything but substantial or vital to the community. After all, the deep content is known before the ’curtain raises’ and performing this content is a matter of craft or artistry while encoding deep-messages in dance movements or sound-constructions by exhibiting of passion or single-mindedness in transmitting the meaningful sounds or movements in an emotionally convincing4 way. It is clear that by this kind of reasoning we will be unable to understand the very essence of kinaesthetic praxis. If one wants to say anything different or interesting, it is obvious that we need to develop a new conception of rhythm and unity. To these tasks I shall now turn, beginning with the notion of rhythm.
dogmatizing to
4.
African
Music: A
Comparison Before examining African kinaesthetic praxis as a set of activities which are frequently observed in a common context of, say, celebration, we need to spell out the main characteristics of African music in a generalized technical discourse. However, given our aim of comparing Western with African musical styles, we first have to question the presuppositions of our comparison. This will be done in this section. After a ’thick’ musicographical characterization we will be able to detect at least two interesting issues of comparison: the handling of rhythm and the centrality of the procedure of supplementation. 4.1.
Comparing
What?
In 1957, Marius Schneider writes that the task of ethnomusicologists is to &dquo;... rediscover the bridges between European and non-European music which certainly once existed and to reconstruct them, theoretically at least, by means of comparative musicology.&dquo; (cited in Nketia, 1967b, 12). Obviously Schneider is voicing the concern of a whole generation of ethnomusicologists for historical reconstruction which, sooner or later, had to consolidate the evolutionist scheme. But, how to talk of similarities, their ’musico-geographical’ origin and lines of historical continua, if we don’t yet understand the major differences between them? Although we sympathize with the more recent school of ’contextualists’ who study music in terms of its cultural content, prudence is called for. Mantle Hood (1981), who may be considered as the forerunner and promotor of this approach, seems to endorse our claim that one would do
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
better
263
the differences. After voicing the quite deceptive slogan &dquo;All musical cultures are about equally complex&dquo;, Hood pleads for micro-cultural research. The rationale is to supply qualitative, culture-specific evidence for the universal fact of equal complexity, that is, the cultivation of certain features of musical culture (Hood, 1985, 23). It is obvious that the universality of complex musical culture is a trivial and platitudinous starting-point for comparative musicology. The problem lies in comparison: How do I compare the virtuosic vocal flexibility of Al Jareau with the interlocking rhythms and tone colour of the Lobi xylophone of Ghana? The fact is that ethnomusicology (or what it has ended up becoming) focuses on small-scale, so called, specialized research projects in the hope to concentrate on
of arriving at a future synthesis while ’discovering’ universalia at random. This in contradistinction to the evolutionist musicology, which was
far
oriented to comparative studies, only to prove what it had already assumed as being true. It is clear that any synthesis will inevitably be a white-coloured one if it is based on musicological science that works with biased tools (notation, sound analysis) and concepts (harmony, counterpoint), and sneakily universalized common-sense notions of music-as-recreation, music-as-art, music-as-sound, etc. When we speak of comparing music (or whatever) across cultures, then, it appears we face a major dilemma: If we were to take Nketia’s advice seriously &dquo;(that) the first task of musicology in Africa lies in enhancing our knowledge and understanding as well as our appreciation of music as a vital part of the African experience.&dquo; (Nketia, 1964, 263; our emphasis), we must realize that we are using a biased instrumentarium for reconstructing the building blocks of such a musical tradition. Also Serafine (1988, 37) states that the western notation system is able to capture merely a small part and probably not even the most important one of a non-western performance. On the one hand, the usage of the existing conceptual apparatus leads us to either a partial or even totally distorted picture of the African music, and thus to an inability to account for music as a vital part of African experience. On the other hand, there does not appear to be any other alternative to the existing conceptual framework either. Between the horns of the dilemma lies an issue, which has hardly been formulated as a problem: If our notions about what music is (music-as-recreation, etc.), is not what music is in Africa, in what sense could we speak of comparing Western music with the African music? If the aesthetic domain, as we see it, is not a domain that exists separate from daily life in Africa, how could more
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
our aesthetic domain to understand what distinct domain at all? I have no answer to these vaguely formulated issues, but I should like to argue that these issues are genuine. Compounding the above difficulties is the fact of many messages coming from the black continent saying that their dance and music are of vital importance to them. If this is true, we have to decide which way to go. If we hold on to our common sense associations of music-asrecreation or music-as-art, we could proclaim that the African world is one huge concert hall or an opera house, where day after day a folk gesammtkunstwerk is presented featuring all natives great and small. To refute these and similar assertions it is necessary to gain insight into the central techniques of African music making. we
is
possibly use our knowledge,
no
4.2. Dimensions of
Simultaneity.
As stated earlier we will concentrate on two main themes that keep coming up when examining African music: (i) the technique of supplementation whereby different musical parts and particles are added to one another and (ii) the specific way a rhythmic texture is developed. Our observation is based on a few outstanding authors: Waterman (1952), Merriam (1959), Chernoff (1979), Richards (1985) and Asante (1985) who set out to reveal the common features of an African musical style. These are, according to the last three of them, listed below. The supplementation of particles and parts Observing the interplay of instruments and vocals, one is led to characterize African music as polymetric and cross-rhythmic. In most cases the different instruments use different meters and find their entrance into the playing not by counting from the main beat, but in relation to the other instruments. This simultaneous use of different meters is called polymetry. As to the rhythmic patterns, a similar feature is observed: the diverse rhythmic patterns establish and develop themselves in changing relationships to each other. This cross-rhythmic interaction results in the fact that players distinguish themselves from each other (’apart-playing’) while they remain dynamically related (’poly centric’). Both these characteristics draw on a more widely observed feature which we call supplementation. The participation in this polymetric fabric is based on, what westerners would call, the coolness of the participants who add on to, instead of following the main beat. As a consequence, a doubleedged problem of registration raises. On the one hand, the so-called subjective insertion of a rhythm by tacit participations (the passive audience)
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obviously not be registered. On the other hand, it seems that we can observe things which are inaudible to the participants. This phenomenon is intriguingly illustrated by Ibrahim Abdulai Chernoff’s drum master, complaining that: &dquo;he could not hear his variations without a second dondon (drum)&dquo; (Chernoff, 1979, 53) The above problem kindles our interest in questioning the nature of relationships established between music making participants. That syndesis5 as simultaneous supplementation is a central technique of constructing a music performance is once more illustrated by H. Pantaleon and Moses Sezwadda: &dquo;...The African taps his foot to mime the motion of the dancers, or any other part of the ensemble he wishes to add particularly strongly to his own&dquo; (1968, 52; emphasis ours). Here it becomes clear that participating implies (i) adding a personal rhythmic pattern highly independent from the existent cross-rhythmic tissue as well as (ii) taking over parts of other participations. Coming back to Abdulai’s quotation about not being able to hear his own variations, two interpretations seem possible. One way of understanding this statement is by assessing that the interfering other functions as a ’monitor’.6 ’Monitoring’ can be but the summum of simultaneity: one player overlapping the other. In sum, a combination of personal coolness (’apart-playing’) and blind reproduction (’monitoring’) seems practically possible to the African, however highly counterintuitive to the western scholar. Nonetheless, we may not pass over the fact that Abdulai’s complaint about &dquo;hearing his own&dquo; can be interpreted in a different way, namely, &dquo;the part of the other functions as a musical background against which my variations stand out and become audible&dquo;. Such an interpretation seems intelligible to us but inconsistent with the overall principle of can
apart-playing. Without claiming a decisive answer to the above questioning, I believe that any use of spatial metaphors in describing African music making will be counter-productive. I propose to look into the matter as follows: Music-making is primarily seen as a creation of time because, by making an infinite number of beats. The introduction of a rhythm implies (i) the confirmation (fixing or filling up) of a personal choice of succeeding beats and (ii) the creation of time-gaps (non-beats) which invite to be beaten, danced or sung. In its turn this beat invites (iii) a previously established rhythm to be moderated by expansion, addition to reduction or variation and (iv) the new rhythmical situation and thus get involved in the musical dynamics.
music, time is divided into
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So, there is no question of one musical participation/participant being ’somewhere’in the background or foreground. Nor does the conceptualization of musical participation as &dquo;all next to each other&dquo; work: it fails because it neglects the dynamics of the relationships. To understand this better let us take a closer look at the knots of the cross-rhythmic tissue (the beats) and the repetition of the weaving pattern.
rhythmic tissue In drumming as in dance, song and poetry, the phenomenon of off-beat playing, i.e., multiple contractions (dance), the accented second beat in triple meter (song) and stress on the musical syncope (poetry) are registered anywhere on the African continent and its overseas territories. (see Chernoff, 1979, 48-9; Asante, 1985, 74; Akpabot, 1972, 62; Jahn, 1958, 34) Thus, an essential aspect of African music which is, as Hornbostel exclaimed, &dquo;syncopated beyond comprehension&dquo; is the double click: the effect being the fast and rhythmical succession of something like pulsations or contractions. Furthermore, melodic and rhythmic progression is estimated when having drive. This means a fast tempo and emphasis on notes of short durational values. Questioning the statement that off-beat playing must be considered as playing around the beat in order to stress both the main beat and its own as a detached, fully-grown rhythmic contribution, we come back to our discussion on the temporal character of the musical experience. Having explored the dimensions of simultaneity we concentrate no longer on the width but on the length of the temporal dimension. A full musical session consists of the performance of several styles (cluster os rhythmic patterns) which are part of a musical traditionThe
sometimes with a name of a song, dance or ritual attached to it. The repetition of a rhythmic pattern in a particular style is a way of exploring and intensifying the possibilities of that style. Most authors speak of revealing the depth of a style. We think that repetition is also a factor of expanding the invitation to contribute to the whole of the community ; giving everyone the time to formulate a response. As every participation implies a heard or unheard addition to a rhythmic pattern, it becomes clear what is meant by the notion of intensification. ’Once’ a style is sufficiently explored, a consensus about what the next style will be and when it will be established must be arrived at. This is far from easy because apart from a few rhythmic patterns which serve as a point of reference, no one is following any one player, but each is following everyone. What the
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are of this creation of a consensus is a critical part of the discussion on African dance in the next part. If we look at repetition as a syndetic procedure, i.e., where a rhythmic pattern is added to a preceding one with minimal variation, we are led to question the consistency of a performance. In other words: How can pure supplementation order and unify a performance. To answer it properly we need to inquire further into the strange combination of (i) innovative supplementation of a rhythmic pattern and (ii) blind reproduction of the preceding. That is to say, there appears to be a kind of repetitive activity that is extremely innovative at the same time. Surely, this is a rather odd combination? Odd or not, it appears to me to be the crux of the problem. Could this notion be made intelligible? I believe so; but given the size of this article, this is a question that cannot be explored at the present moment. Let me summarize: in order to compare the Western aesthetic domain with the African kinaesthetic domain, we needed to arrive at a slightly clearer understanding of such a notion as ’rhythm’ in African dance and music. If rhythm underlies recursive movement, and the leading characteristic of African dance is rhythm then, at a ’technical level’, the comparison between the Western and the African music leads one to make the following two observations: 1. As stated by Serafine, style (here in its traditional meaning of basic features of a number of performances) has been defined in the West primarily in terms of pitch and rhythm. Pitch, which provides both harmony and melody, has been given most attention, and rhythm considerably less. (Serafine, 1988, 51) Nketia, while searching for panAfrican structural processes in music, observes that &dquo;rhythmic organization is more complex than tonal organization. Melody is organised within the rhythmic framework&dquo; (1973, 595). So it seems as though we’re bound to begin every comparison with the platitude that rhythm is to Africa what harmony is to the West. You can see Mantle Hood counting that the average complexity in both musical cultures is about equal. Yet, our predicament is empty unless we account for its conse-
implications
quences. 2. Although I will
develop this idea in detail, it seems most productive to compare melody and rhythm from their spatial and temporal qualities and associations. Applied to the dimension of width, the simultaneous supplementation of melodies seems to result in complete chaos unless certain melodies have a central or frontal place while others remain in the background or in the periphery. not
me
be able
to
to
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As to the dimension of length, a melodic/harmonic construction asks for a final synthesis that integrates the previous themes on a higher level. Innovative recursivity, where the creativity is located in the repetition itself, cannot demand for a splendid ’finale’ without making its syndetic construction of dynamically related, independent participations ridiculous. I am led to believe that melody in western music functions as a method of spatializing an acoustic sensation whereas in Africa music is made temporal by rhythm. However, the problem of comparison is not that easily laid at rest. To say that music and dance in Africa are not separate from daily life is also to claim that ’innovative recursivity’ is part of daily life interactions. What does the last statement mean? How does music-making i.e. ’acting recursively’ lead to creating a community? These are the questions that need answering. Important as these questions are, they deserve a better worked-out answer than I can give now. Consequently, in what follows, I shall indulge in some hand-waving by way of conclusion. 5.
Dance: The Construction
of a Community The ’African rhythmic experience’ as analyzed in the preceding section is the basis of kinaesthetic praxis. In what follows I shall contend that all characteristics of kinaesthetic praxis point to the fact that every dance/music performance may be considered as a session in the curriculum of a dominant learning process. Moreover we’ll observe that the content of the learning sessions is the solving of problems concerning the ordering of multiple relationships while the entire community is participating in the kinaesthetic curriculum. On the basis of these observations we are able to conclude that what is learned in kinaesthetic praxis is the construction of a community. African
About the term The prefix ’kin’ is derived from the Greek verb &dquo;kinein&dquo; move) and thus refers traditionally to variables in time and space. On the one hand, focussing on Africa we found that the spatial experience in dance is made ’temporal’ while the spatial experience in the other kinaesthetic practices is obviously absent. On the other hand, in the course of our recent research, it became clear that either kinaesthetic (dance-music) and the sub-category of phonaesthetic (song, poetry and myth-making) practices are rhythmically structured. Indeed, the features of the rhythm of myth-making compared with these of a dance will certainly differ in
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number of aspects. But so far it suffices for the reader to have a general notion of the practices residing under the label kinaesthetic. Therefore, to reduce the meaning of the prefix to the condition of ’having rhythm’ seems well-founded. Nevertheless, the term kinaesthetic knowledge does not only refer to the knowledge produced by kinaesthetic praxis but also to the dominant knowledge-system ’guiding’, so to speak, knowledge gathering on the African continent. To use the term ’aesthetic’ contains the danger of causing confusion, not so much due to the extreme complexity of this notion on the African continent but because of the long and confusing life-history of the concept on the western hemisphere. It must be clear that the term neither solely refers to art or artistic activities nor to the realm of beauty and ugliness. The notion of the aesthetic as it is used here refers to a cluster of sensitive qualities (embracing all senses) intensely experienced and considered indispensible when involved in such a kind of praxis. The polysensitive experiencing of a kinaesthetic happening is a ’conditio sine qua non’ of its effectiveness and existence and cannot be considered to give it only an emotional surplus value. a
5.1
Learning Kinaesthetically
further our examinations into the essentials of the ’African experience’ in a context of kinaesthetic praxis we’d like to answer three simple questions about a dance/music session: 1. What is the origin/beginning of a session? 2. How does it develop? 3. What is the end/finality of a session? The question what the origin of a performance is was put in a similar form by J.M.Chernoff to Ibrahim Abdulai, who is also the leader of the Takai drummers in Tamale (Ghana). The answer was: &dquo;..I can tell you that no one introduced Takai. Anytime you hear a dondon beater beating, and someone is dancing, then you must know that the dondon beater introduced the playing. He is the one who introduced the beating of the drum.&dquo;(Chernoff, 1979, 61). It is unimportant for the moment to know what he is specifically talking about: be it a specific dance performance, say the tradition of Takai dance, or ’the dance’. Obviously, the starting point is that of two or more players set up a performance in a particular style. The relation to the last and-going back-to the original performance is not a continuity qua morphology (of a particular dance tradition) or qua eidos (’the dance’ is once more performed in a context- or functionIn order
to
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specific appearance) but one of learning within a The way the performance develops tells us cedure/curriculum of the learning situation and
dominant learning process. more about the prothe probable content of
what is to be learned. As stated by I. Abdulai, the performance begins by the introduction of a rhythm and the joining in of others by means of rhythmic contributions. Each of these additions could be described as the filling up of and, concurrently, the creation of time-gaps inviting others to recognize it. Whereas passively following a rhythmic patterns is seen as ’not-cool’, which evidences a lack of understanding what is taking place, the elaboration of a virtuoso-the failure to feel the musical dynamics-is seen as being childish. In sum, it looks as though there are three things to learn from the appellative situation just described: (i) The invitation is addressed to everyone, both the performers and the audience. (ii) Every ’guest’ is evaluated in terms of the creativity of his contribution and the force to intervene personally. (iii) The most critical issue is one of developing a personal pattern while getting tuned into the dynamics of the other contributions on pain of being isolated and obstructing the style which requires expansion and intensification.
Dancing
many drums
The last point reveals another characteristic of the musical process, namely that it is an explorative situation. The contribution of the dancer is of special interest here. He or she not only makes a personal rhythmic contribution, but is also able to articulate or take over parts of the surrounding rhythms. This phenomenon Asante called the polycentric sensibility of the participants and of the Africans in general. Indeed, the fact that the dancer lets the different parts of his/her body respond to the different rhythmic patterns (’dance many drums’) can be considered as the summum of polymetry centered in one body. (see Asante, 1985, 74-79). The dynamic repetition of rhythmic patterns can be conceived as working with relationships. The only unifying element in a dance/music session is the establishment and the attentive elaboration of relations between participants. Being together, kinaesthetically intertwined, is the definition of unity. In sum, the explorative aspect of a session rests on the experience of a multi-dimensional time and building a dynamic network of relationships. As stated earlier, one of the most critical points is achieving a consensus regarding the abandoning of the exploited style and introducing
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another in its stead. To outline a common methodology used by the performers for solving this problem goes beyond the scope of this article. We restrict ourselves to outlining a few of the general features. 1. The initiative to make this transition can be taken by whoever is participating: musicians, dancers, audience. 2. The initiator indicates a coming transition by a notable change of style. Meta-messages are communicated within the same medium
4.
(dance, music). If it is accepted, a number of participants would look around for a new style. The newly established style, though in a rather simple form, may
5.
be the wrong choice. In that case, another transition is set up until a broad approval is felt. A session which contains only one style is rejected as dull and
3.
turn out to
uninteresting. If in answering the question, When is the end of a session? we listen to I. Abdulai once more, we would be confronted with an enigmatic kind of a response-when compared to the answer to the first question: &dquo;Drumming has no end, and to talk of drumming, you cannot talk of it and finish&dquo; (Chernoff, 1979, 101). When interpreting Abdulai’s statement that a session had no origin, we suggested that the foregoing performance was considered as another instance of a learning process. This is now confirmed by our informants explanation of the answer above. It turns out that the word drumming here is a synonym for learning:&dquo;Every playing (this is the actual performance with a marked beginning and end) is different, and in drumming (i.e., learning how to set up relationships) everyone has got his hand.&dquo; (Chernoff, 1979, 101). The enigma we’re facing is that the beginning and the end are not considered as opposites. After all, how can something begin when it has never ended? Mbiti gives us a useful hint. Since, for the African, time moves backward and things disappear in an ’ocean of time’, which is a reality that is neither before nor after and one in which everything becomes absorbed, The Origin (as well as the finality) of something is irrelevant because all interaction with it is lost. (Mbiti, 1969, 17-23) Only in the near past or near future the beginning of something is meaningful &dquo;to the individual or the community only through their participating in it or experiencing it.&dquo; (Mbiti, 1969, 23) So it seems a number of elements are present which point to a kinaesthetic performance as a learning process. As in music we are confronted with the same &dquo;strange combination&dquo; detected earlier. Here we
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
mainly interested in the &dquo;personal rhythm&dquo;, because it seems to be the source of kinaesthetic learning. Without it interaction is impossible. In terms of learning one could say that personal rhythm functions as a learned heuristic, a method to detect what can be learned, a way to explore what the other has to ’say’. Already in the beginning we made clear that dance was meaningless. In what followed we stated that this could be said of all kinaesthetic practices. However, if we are to conclude that kinaesthetic knowledge is dominant, this means that the interaction pattern and the heuristic attached to it, &dquo;give birth to&dquo; all other kind of practices. Could we make sense of other phonaesthetic activities, so closely related to music too? Let us explore kinaesthetic heuristic in phonaesthetic situations and its relation to the building up of a meaningful story: a myth. are
5.2.
Talking Kinaesthetically
A first
promising observation is that mythopoetic praxis cannot be replaced by or reduced to written text. Contemporary African writers don’t feel that they are faced with the choice between promoting literacy as a condition for rational thinking and scientific progression, and developing new oral forms to accompany the new realities. Both stances don’t seem to be mutually exclusive. (see Boadu, 1985, 89) It is particularly interesting to contrast the above attitude with the way Havelock looks at Plato’s frontal attack upon the core of Greek literature: the ’mousikei’. In a situation of craft literacy, Plato launched an assault against either the ’poetised statement’ (everything said in poetry/song/dance/theatre) and the ’poetic experience as such’ (the personal involvement and the emotional identification with the message). The fundamentals for this hostile attitude towards the embodiment of the spoken word by the ’one’ transmitted to the ’many’ who, following the orator, also felt personally (bodily) involved and emotionally addressed, were laid during the three centuries of cosmologising the pantheon by the
Pre-Socratics (Havelock, 1963, 9; 276-305). Havelock’s succinct exposition can help us localize some of the reasons for mistrusting the spoken word communicated in a phonaesthetic context. With this we do not reopen the social-Darwinist debate by looking for similarities between the pre-Socratic situation of folk-lore, on which the whole educational system was based, and the African contemporary state of craft literacy, because of the resoluteness of contemporary Africa to attack Plato’s alternatives between &dquo;poetic experience&dquo; and &dquo;decent reasoning&dquo;. On the contrary,
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
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personal involvement seems a ’conditio sine qua non’ of kinaesthetic learning. The second point of our argumentation turns towards the kinaesthetic procedures found in myth-making. Isodore Okpewho illustrates in his ’Myth in Africa’(1983) the appellative, explorative and problem-solving features of mythopoesis in Africa. The key to his discourse-this is also a welcome confirmation of our former statement-is the impossibility of reducing a myth-session to a written account. In that case, one would overlook the fact that e. g. &dquo;for the narrative event to be a truly successful one in aesthetic terms, the gratification has to realized equally by both the artist and the audience&dquo; (1983, 81). It turns out that what he calls ’aesthetic’ are precisely those features which make myth session resemble a musical one: collective, creating gaps for intervention, plurality of media involved, open-endedness, natural syncretism etc.
Telling
many stories
However, a point that requires clarification is the relation between rhetorics and dance/music in terms of rhythm and repetition. On the one hand, Nketia (1973, 594-95) has demonstrated that a vocal contribution to a music/dance session is subject to the same processes as those described for an instrumental or dance participation. Okpewho, on the other hand, insists on the more general fact that music is the thing which guides the underlying procedures of myth-making by quoting a Mandingo ’griot’ ( = bard) saying: &dquo;Music is the griot’s soul.&dquo; (1983, 95). So far it may be clear that the contributions of the audience to myth making are of vital importance to the gratification and even to the truthvalue of the myth. As it was said of good dancers that they were able &dquo;to dance many drums&dquo;, it could be said of a good griot that he &dquo;tells many stories&dquo;. At this point we are able to see what is counterintuitive about the demand for simultaneous supplementation of ’rhythms’ or ’stories’. If we were to consider rhythms as stories-i.e., as meaningful or contentful units that can be translated into natural languages-then pure or simple addition of rhythms or stories appear possible only if the internal consistency of the music or dance session could be dispensed with. At the same time, treating stories as rhythms is conceivable only if the content of these stories and certainly that of the contributions of the audience is considered to be of minor importance. However, this stance is untenable with respect to the significance of oral literature on the African continent and the role it plays in transmitting the tradition. For the time being it
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
will be necessary to leave the idea that there should be an exclusive kind of relation between syndetic ordering and content-consistency. With respect to our exploration of &dquo;the heuristic of personal contributing&dquo;, we can say the following. It must be clear that the bard when telling a myth is involved in a rather complex situation. On the one hand the ’truth’ of the story is linked to his own credibility; on the other hand, he must integrate the ’additions’ proposed by the audience. At this point, we know how to conceive of integration as syndetic ordering and addition as independent supplementation. It appears to me that an African story is better conceived as a number of related events. The heuristic of expounding a seemingly detached event into this ’whole’ is no more than changing the relations, explore the results of these changes and, thus, testing the flexibility of the story. 5.3.
Constructing Kinaesthetically
What do people learn about constructing a community when involved in phon- or kinaesthetic praxis? Before answering this question, we must make clear who can participate and what the necessary and sufficient conditions are to ’present’ oneself or to be invited to do so. Our answer is: everything that can create a rhythm, everything that has a soul. Forget the christian definition of a soul, and think of it as a heart in terms of having a rhythm (pulsation), and of an essence in terms of being immortal (having slumbering relationships with the living). In such a way we try to cope (a) with Mbiti’s classification of all beings (living, living-dead, spirits) in terms of the time-dimension they’re in; (b) with Soyinka’s plea for a secular ’religion’, populated with anthropomorphic beings who cannot escape their history; (Mbiti, 1969, 12-22; Soyinka, 1976, 10, 86-96) and (c)
with Okpewho’s statement that &dquo;the anthropomorphic origin of uncountable deities is... the innate humanity of the gods, themselves, their bond with men through a common animist relation with nature and phenomena. &dquo; (Okpewho, 1983, 254). The only concession rests in the use of the word ’anthropomorphic’, which points to a visual morphological condition, while we restrict this condition to the possession of a heart or essence. Magic, in this view, is the creation of or dealing with spiritualized, ’anthropized’ beings. Man-made (secular) spirits appear in a diversity of man-made objects (masks, statues, etc.). The phenomenon of danced art and Thompson’s remark that &dquo;understanding sculpture without people is impossible&dquo; (Thompson, 1974, 198) brings us to the conclusion that the goal of a dance/music session is not only the actualization of relation-
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
275
ships by rhythmic presentation but also extending an invitation to participate to all those ’objects’ which can intervene only on condition that they’ve got a personal rhythm. It seems plausible to consider the whole world as being involved in kinaesthetic praxis. The presence of beings other than the living is the evidence that what is learned in the presence of ancestors and spirits is of vital importance to the construction of community and of the world as a
whole.
By way of conclusions, we present the consequences of conceiving community kinaesthetically: (i) A society is conceived of as a ’syndetic unity’ of all animized beings-animized in the sense of being in time, having a history. Thereby, the relation between these beings change and are subject to a process of aging. (ii) In kinaesthetic celebration one does not only learn how a society in constructed, but also how one can learn about living in a society (the societal construction). The crucial condition is that one makes a personal contribution to test relations, their changes and the result of these changes. Now there remains only one fence to leap. We do appreciate Chernoff when he writes that &dquo;for Africans, ideas of community serve as a foundation for the conception of the order of the world...&dquo; (1979, 164). Though it seems we have to see it the other way around. The way a community is constructed is (i) exemplary of how a world order is experienced and (ii) this is learned and/or experienced in kinaesthetic praxis. 6. Kinaesthetic
Knowledge:
Too Soon for Conclusions?
It is time to see where we have arrived, and where we have to go. The basic thrust of this paper was to identify some aspects of the contemporary ethno-choreologic fallacy and to propose an alternative, which consists of making intelligible what the Africans have said about the ’African experience’. To do this, the western functionalist, phenomenological and the semiotic assumptions were taken up and scrutinized: The functionalist idea that dance and music bring about the integration of the group involved in the performance; the phenomenological assumption that dance is a kinetic experience in time and space; and the semiotic premise that dance and music are a series of figures and sounds respectively that refer to ideas or sentiments which can be decoded in natural language. These
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AFRICANS DANCE IN TIME
assumptions are unable to understand African (kinaesthetic) experience (i) a way of ordering an ’anthropized’ cosmos, (ii) as a dominant bodyconnected learning process, and (iii) as a part of a knowledge system founded on the paradigm of rhythm. The functionalist idea about integration can be seen as the western common sense conception of unity-making and says that the concertation of a group is actualized by showing or observing an emotionally convincing, preas
In other words, what is shown or seen in dance are about world views cloaked in an affecting spectacle. The propositions of emotional function the engagement is the replacement of fear (for the unknown) and stress (permanent attention for the unpredictable) by a collective and common feeling of security and relaxation. Nothing of all this is attested to by kinaesthetic praxis. It is in no way a visual spectacle but a rhythmic, temporal experience. No one is convincing anyone and instead of hot-tempered submissiveness we observe individuals taking care of personal strength and coolness. All direct or indirect orchestration is absent; the African audience attaches great importance to the artistic credibility of the players and their responsiveness to what they, as individual observers, have to contribute. The integrative aspect of kinaesthetic praxis resides in the experience of the cosmic order which is rhythmic in nature. Probably it is too early to explicate how the African concept of order should look like. Though, according to our findings, this order must be conceived of as a dynamic fabric of changing and aging relationships between spiritualized units possessing a personal meter ( rhythmic line). We think that it must be productive to study the phenomenon of magic on this basis, while we can postulate already that religion in the Judaeo-Christian sense of the word is totally absent in the African world. Instead of saying that everything that is not religion ( ancestor or fertility cults) is magic, we propose the opposite approach towards a redefinition of African religion in terms of magic and the spiritualized, temporal cosmos. To speak of experiencing the cosmic order as a dynamic and aging ’entity’ implies that order cannot just be reconfirmed-the order is there and will always be. Rather, it must in the first place be repeated in the sense of being creatively reconstructed. To use the expression ’repeat a cosmic order’ is highly illuminating here, because we’re talking about a temporal order and not a spatial one where every object has its placethis is a world which must be explored in the sense of visiting. The reconstruction of an ’old order’ implies the presence (literally) not only of all the units of order that require to be ordered, but also the re-presentation
established
consensus.
=
=
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(literally also) of the old relationships. That &dquo;the dancing the rhythmic order&dquo; is incomparable with the splendour of a two hour ’Swan Lake’ experience is dramatically exemplified by a doomed ethno-discipline which could not see the difference (because it can only be felt and carried out). The idea that dance is kinetic experience is rightly seen by the phenomenologists. However, the two basic criticisms against this approach is expressed in my choosing the term ’kinaesthetic’. By expanding the meaning of ’kin’ to all temporal, rhythmic experiences (even to such overtly verbal performances as myth-making) on the one side, and excluding the spatiality of the experience on the other side, I have tried to ’emicize’ our terminology in confrontation with Africa. Yet, by adding the term ’aesthetic,’ I have drawn attention to the poly-sensitive character of the experience. Here, there is a major difference of opinion between Africa and the West. By confronting the observation that kinaesthetic knowledge must reside in and transmitted by a sensitive body with Plato’s protest against the ’embodiment’ of knowledge as precluding all possibilities of rational thinking, we can sound the depth of this intercontinental fissure. Though this is one of my conclusions, this should have been the point of departure for any serious initiative to comparative science. Taking fundamental differences for granted would have prevented us from questioning the possibilities of replacing the paradigms of one knowledge system by those of another. Generations of frenetic attempts to replace or reduce kin- or phonaesthetic praxis by a written account witnesses to this systematic mistrust of the worthiness of the other. The adjective &dquo;primitive&dquo;-the most cynical quotation of western scientific literature-was not chosen because of its few positive connotations but because no ethno-scholar could think of something else that insinuated his standards of comparison: literacy, abstract conceptual thinking, rational knowledge, technological sophistication, etc. I do not intend to suggest that other cultures are deprived of learning how we go about the world and vice versa. It is absurd to propose that e.g. literacy will ruin the African kinaesthetic knowledge system and therefore should be kept away from the Black continent. At most it can be a challenge to a three thousand year old knowledge system to ’prove’ its strength. Regarding the semiotic premise that kinaesthetic practices can be divided into segments referring to ideas or sentiments, which can be decoded in natural language. Once again this turns out to be a refor-
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mulation of the idea of the superior knowledge system. To say that kinaesthetic praxis is meaningless does not mean that words in songs or myths do not have a meaning. But, if it is the case that a primarily nonverbal knowledge system dominates the verbal medium in its very essence, then it is futile to translate a culture in a medium words which it refused to use for several millennia because of its inefficiency within the dominant learning system. In that way we can consider the irrelevancy and the reasons for our initial question why Africans perform ’sexual’ dances instead of making love. Concerning the specific features of kinaesthetic knowledge, there is a major difference in the relation between time and knowledge in Africa and in the West: kinaesthetic knowledge draws on a method of ordering and handling personal strength in the dynamics of relationships between dynamic ’units’, which are defined in time. Greek cosmologising, as observed by Havelock, can be described as the construction of timeless systems of relations between objects/forms. This led to the introduction of the concept of God as the one thing that integrates not only the different systems of phenomena, but also the models describing these systems (Havelock, 1969, 300). African cosmologising will certainly never produce such a ’one thing’ without destroying the essence of their thinking. Apart from the fact that we find a heterologous definition of unit as spiritualized and temporal (’aging’ by loosening interaction with the living), we see that the relationships between these units are temporal too. Because units and relationships are anthropocentrically defined, the concept of a God is obviously opposite to the manmade spirits of the African pantheon. In terms of kinaesthetic knowledge which is maximally decentralized, the creation of a ’one’-as origin and finality of the ’all’-is inconceivable. It has been said that western science draws on rhetoric in the sense that while the ’Teacher’ delivers his oration, the apprentices follow his mind by walking through the places (topoi) of memory. According to Fabian, this theory of communicated knowledge led to the spatialization of consciousness and ultimately to the spatialization of the concept of time (Fabian 1983, 109-114). In kinaesthetic praxis, by contrast, there is the ’temporalization’ of space while Okpewho (1983) alludes to memory and tradition defined in terms of dimensions of time. This means that in myth-making at least three dimensions are ’present’: the time of the fact narrated, the time of the near-present situations or current problems reported, and the time of the actual performance. To speak of transformations as bringing e.g. ’the dance’ residing in the collective mind to the realm of the collec-
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tive
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is irrelevant for understanding what was called the African experience, although it is a splendid example of searching for the ’Ghost in the Dance’(see Havelock, 1963). This is probably a showpiece of African as opposed to Western conceptions. When talking about transformation of e.g. ordinary movements to art dance by ’aesthetization’, this is conceived of as a vehicle starting at a certain point, picking up a number of qualities while riding to a kind of ’finish’ (the stage, the opera house,...). In the same sense, actualization is thought of as bringing something from the place of conceptualization to the realm of visual experience. With a large number of puns on ’present’ and ’re-presentation’ I have alluded to the temporal aspects of the kinaesthetic experience. Surely, comparative research must begin where this article as the announcement of a personal project ends. To resume my discourse would undoubtedly show the gaps of (at times) defective argumentation. A grim systematization of propositions and evidence would hide the plenitude of problem areas thus revealing the lack of self-cognition both in Africa and in the West. senses
NOTES * I owe and for his
large debt of gratitude to Mr. Balu for his dedication in revising the text challenging ideas. Thanks are also due to the anonymous referees of Cultural for stimulating comments and criticisms. Dynamics 1 It was during the 1977 Festival of African Black Arts in Lagos, Nigeria, that the idea a
of such a book was conceived. 2 For a more elaborate discussion on the Western discussion of ethnicity, and its relevance to comparative studies of cultures, see Balu, 1985. 3 "In Africa...one considers music as a mode of expression... It even paves the way the express individual thoughts and emotions, as well as to expressing the emotions of the community.", (freely translated) 4 The term ’convincing’ is used in expression-theory for referring to the demagogic of the player to arouse emotions in the audience. capacity 5 This is a term of the art introduced by Robert P. Armstrong (1981) by which he refers to a central characteristic of the African art production that adds ’things’ or qualities to others. It can be conceived of as pure supplementation in the sense that no attention is paid to synthesizing the ’result’. 6 The word ’monitor’ is used in contemporary modern music to designate the sound amplification equipment on the stage which is at the service of the musicians. Bad ’monitoring’ results in the fact that musicians cannot hear themselves properly.
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